First published in The Reign of Mary, Issue #135

On the Merits of Censorship

By Rev. Fr. Benedict Hughes, CMRI

All faithful Catholics are appalled and grieved at the rampant immorality that floods society via our modern means of communication. There seems no end to the ever-escalating procession of indecent pictures and language paraded on the television, movies, magazines and the internet, promoting gross immodesty and pornography, marital infidelity, sexual promiscuity and unnatural vice. Even the most careful and mortified among us cannot help but see, occasionally, offensive sights. We rightly guard our children and ourselves, as best we can, from these occasions of sin, but they seem to lurk everywhere. How did this state of affairs come about?

While those who provide or defend such indecency loudly defend themselves by claiming freedom of speech, based upon the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the question naturally comes to mind: Does the First Amendment really guarantee such “freedom?” (See note at the end of this article.) Another way of putting the question: Did the Founding Fathers of this country, even in their wildest dreams, ever envision (or would they approve of) the manner in which the Bill of Rights is being used? The answer to that question, for any honest person, must be a resounding NO!

We can see the truth of this answer by examining how our government regarded such public displays of immorality before the social revolution of the 1960’;s changed everything. Allow me to present one piece of evidence of this assertion, based upon censorship of the movies, as practiced in the first half of the twentieth century. Fr. Daniel Lord, S.J., in his autobiography Played by Ear, gives a very interesting account of the motion picture industry at that time and the circumstances that led to the writing and enforcement of the code for this industry. Among other things, he points out that state and local governments were appalled at the indecency (quite tame by modern standards, I am sure) that was peddled through the motion pictures of the time. And they did something about it.

Films were originally censored by individual state or local governments, with the threat of a federal censorship law a very real possibility. Fr. Lord mentions that the censorship boards of Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and Illinois were particularly demanding, often cutting out entire sections of films before they could be screened in their respective states. Chicago had an official board of censors connected with its police department. They reasoned that if the government could and should restrict the sale of harmful food, it also must restrict the circulation of morally harmful movies.

What a far cry from today’;s laissez-faire attitude! Tragically, most modern citizens have been duped into believing that freedom of speech and freedom of expression are the holy grail of liberty. As Pope Leo XIII points out in his encyclical on human liberty, however, there is a stark difference between liberty and license. What is being broadcast today is nothing less than license in its most base form, befouling the minds of men and alienating the immortal souls from their Creator.

Pope Pius XII wisely observed that “when by law the State restricts foul language and indecency in pictures and cinemas and theater, it is performing an elementary duty” (Letter to the faithful of Germany, May 23, 1952). Although our government egregiously fails in this elementary duty, we must not excuse ourselves from the responsibility. Each of us must work out his salvation; moreover, parents have a grave obligation to shield the minds and hearts of their children from the foul seductions of the enemy. One recalls the terrible words of Our Lord: “Woe to the world because of scandals: for it must needs be that scandals come; but nevertheless woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh.” It is better for a man “that a millstone be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea” rather than that he should scandalize a child (Matt. 18: 7, 6).

With this proper understanding of the dangers presented by modern media, even the most ardent supporters of “freedom of speech” must admit that something ought to be done. Perhaps they will agree that censorship is not such a bad thing after all. But if governments shrink from the fulfillment of this elementary duty, let us not forget our personal responsibility to practice such a necessary censorship in our own lives and, for parents, in the lives of your children.

* Note: The purpose of this article is not to address the merits of the American concept of freedom, which has already been masterfully dealt with by Bishop Donald Sanborn in “The Cult of Liberty” written in 1995 (http://www.traditionalmass.org/articles/article.php?id=13&catname=7). Rather, we are simply showing how the modern concept of freedom of speech is very different from what was previously intended.

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